Rants, raves and random observations from an itinerant epidemiologist.
100 in 1000
Spend a week up a mountain learning to ski
Visit Karoline's place in Moravia
Hold a conversation in Czech (only)
Drink 500ml of each of the following beers:
Pilsner
Staroprammen
Budvar
Velke Popovice
U Fleku
Gambrinus
Krusovice
Respond to at least one GOARN request (WHO and MSF are
also acceptable)
Travel across the Atlantic
Return to South America
Read a book to, or with, an impressionably aged child
Participate in one NanoWriMo Challenge and come within at least 10,000 words of the goal length
Have my nose pierced
Have my next tattoo drawn
Purchase the perfect jeans (x 2 pairs)
Attend a spin class 3 times a week for 8 consecutive weeks
Bake Viv's cheesecake
Make David's casserole
Make David's Chicken Cashew-nut Stirfry
Invite 4 people who don't know one another too well to dinner
Ride from Vienna to Venice on a motorbike (pillion acceptable, those less desirable)
Attend a book group for at least two books
Go on a choir weekend (learn and perform difficult piece in two/three days)
Visit Madame Tussaud's (in London)
Take an architecture appreciation course
Join an all-girl group and sing a solo
Publish in a scientific journal (top two authors)
Cook a duck or other 'waterfowl'.
Locate the Al-Timimi's from Doha Veterinary Practise
Have a pedicure
Maintain a Brazilian (ouch) for three months.
Find a trustworthy Czech hairdresser
Treat my inner-6-year-old twice a week (at least)
Do the liver-cleansing diet properly (12 weeks)
Don't eat out for one month
Find a flat and flatmate
Purchase one Joseph sweater
Purchase one of the following pairs of
designer shoes (they MUST also be COMFORTABLE, and be able to be worn with 4
different outfits and 2 types of occasion): Jimmy Choos, Manolo Blahniks,
Christian Louboutin (Ebay or 2nd hand are acceptable)
Send 5 books to the booksphere and track them.
Go hanggliding
Read 10 'classic' books (from 1001 Books to Read before you Die)
Moll Flanders
Everything is illuminated
Madam Bovary
Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance
Catch-22
Odysseus
On the Road
Run (non-stop!) for 5kms outside (preferably in a street race thingy)
Send Christmas Cards on time
Make a collage/mural out of street lights on my wall
Buy a bed, build it, and sleep soundly in it
Go to Africa
Host an 'event' (classified as and when)
Organise a 30th Birthday Party
Wear a costume
Sing on stage
Buy a painting that evokes memories of Prague (cannot involve queues!)
Learn a god-damned card game that stays in my memory (other than fish/snap)
See sunrise. Be sober. Have woken for it. Excludes months Nov-Mar
Take a walk and flip coins at each intersection
Win something
Draft a will
Take a roadtrip
Go to Italy already
Sea Kayak around Abel Tasman Park (NZ)
Get plants
Take a train to another Eastern European Destination (accession countries are acceptable) alone preferably.
Get UK to give me a provisional motorcyclists license and simultaneously get a 'card' license.
Go SCUBA diving again - at least two dives lasting 30mins each.
Go to a dentist. *sigh*
Do a Czech Wine Trail. And live to tell the tale
Make an 'outbreak emergency kit'.
Go to bed prior to 11pm every night (inc weekends) for four consecutive weeks.
Marvel over lack of tiredness
Dine at a Gordon Ramsey restaurant (or Nobu)- preferably for free.
Bet on the nags
Do something for charity (applying and getting a 'red card' will count)
Walk along the Champs Elysee
Do 100 sit ups in a row
Do 50 pressups (arms in tight)
Make branston pickle (or nearest substitute)
Cook something 'new' and 'adventurous' at least once a month
Find a mentor
Be a mentor
Learn what mentoring is all about
Meet an online person in real life
Resist the flirt. Once. Just one night. It's okay if people don't immediately succumb to my natural charm. Really it is.
Spend time at a spa (spa towns in the CR don't count)
Send a care package to someone
Get a Tata Bojs CD
Take a French/German/Dutch course and SPEAK THE DAMNED LANGUAGE WHEN I HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY EVEN THOUGH IT MAKES ME SOUND
LIKE AN IDIOT!
Order new contact lenses.
Make a list of things I take with me when I pack for different occasions
Eat lobster. Prepared by someone else.
Back up the blog
Put everything onto an external hard drive
Find a DDR mat and console and 'dance, I say dance!'�
Go to the beach and lie on the warm sand. For an hour. (with sunscreen on, natch)
Take and complete a course in either: Tango, Salsa or Flamenco
Join the Municipal Library of Prague
Move to another country
Go to a live concert of a band I actually like
Pay off debts (student loan excl.)
Send thank you cards for every gift I receive (other than the gift of happiness, blah blah blah).
Get an agent (literary or theatre)
Go to a sports bar without cringing, by personal choice
Ride a rollercoaster
Hold a snake
Spend a day wandering around a museum (not art gallery!)
Accomplished, but not very busy
Wednesday, 19 October 2005
Today I have accomplished many things. I became very scared of winter. For the first time in my life, I stepped out of the apartment and my lungs hurt to fill with air. It's soooo cold, and it's not even freezing yet. Apparently, today's temperature was "6oC but will feel like 3oC". Thanks BBC! And I was still in a summer coat, which was doing feck all to keep me warm. I verily SCURRIED from apartment to metro station to work and back (via hospital), always deeply suspicious that the cloud of air I exhaled would condense into crystals and end up cutting my face as I walked. However, I did see my first frost (thankfully, not the perma- variety which I'm told will become apparent later). I think I amused one of the dry cleaning staff at the institute by making footprints in it. Yes, it means that I had to continue the rest of the day with damp shoes, but it was worth it just to hear the crunching. I learnt to count to ten. This should not seem like such a big accomplishment, but believe you me, it does. I've decided I shall probably say 2+1 and 2+2 for three and four respectively, as these are the words with the ř following at least two other consonants, and my lips/teeth/tongue (agile though they may be) are insufficiently nimble to pronounce without stumbling over the word. However, I CAN do 1, 2, and 5-10 very quickly, to the delight of the barely-english-speaking secretary who accompanied me to the hospital. Čekarnas (waiting rooms) are worth something I suppose. AND I provided entertainment to the adults (and child, who presumably wondered why the hell I hadn't managed to count to 10 yet!) as I struggled my way through, then closed my book and used my fingers to help me, and I even got a round of smiles (very rare indeed in the CR). I have ascertained that my lungs are not filled with tuberculosis (or any other white lumps), that I have a heart in the right place (literally, to the left of centre) and that my spine is indeed attached to my ribs. I had a chest xray. I had been hoping that the technician was hot, and thus wore my bestest bra. The technician was indeed hot, but also female. She laughed when I pressed my hands against the plate (against which my breasts would momentarily be pressed) to see whether it was cold or not. Seems some things DEFINITELY translate a language barrier! :) (I was a little perturbed that they didn't give me a 'lap apron' to cover the reproductive bits, but I had no idea how to ask for one either. Ah well...nothign like playing the tetragenic lottery huh? I managed to get home in under 30mins. This is amazing, since the journey to work seems to take longer each day (despite the scurrying, now i know why they all walk fast here...it's to get/keep warm!). However, there was incentive... ...I unpacked some of my belongings, having assissted the lad (finally, a hot Czech guy with chiselled jaw, tanned skin and bright blue eyes...) carry 15 items up three flights of stairs. So now I sit here, with a hot water bottle on my lap, wearing my comfy comfy slippers. Thanks to Lira for the lovely note...indeed...only one Thanksgiving to go...and that's almost upon us as well! I went to sort out my czech lessons (I thought I was doing well to learn the numbers, and I've got some of hte days of the week down too!), where I'll learn 400-500 words over 9 weeks! WTP!? That's surely not enough. Oh, but they throw in some CR history too...I'm not sure whether I'm pleased with that or not. I learnt that it's possible to walk in high heels (the black and white boots for those who know my shoe wardrobe as well as I do) in town, despite cobblestoned streets, uneven pavements and a twisted ankle. However, it didn't seem wise at any time (jsut as long as I know it's not, then it's fine right?) and I did walk very slowly in that slightly stalky gait of a long-legged bird. Still...I made it without tripping/slipping/breaking anything once. Though it wasn't too long before my calves were screaming, sheesh, 4 weeks in flat shoes and I've lost THAT much stamina in the leg? *sigh* Tried to get health insurance, but they didn't speak English, and my ability to count to 10 was not as impressive to them as to me. Damnit. So Vlado (he's told me to call him that) will accompany me tomorrow sometime to fill in the forms. I feel like SUCH an idiot, but how do you do all this from NZ? There was no way I could have done it. Suffice it to say, my little 'guide book for the next EPIET fellow to come here' will be chocablock with handy hints etc. I'm slightly jealous that Maarten is working already. He's getting his teeth (metaphorically) into Lyme's disease, Meningococcal, Influenza and a few others too. Luise seems to be busy meeting people at the SMI too (Swedish Institute)! I want to work. I'm sitting here (when I'm not doing administrative tasks) twiddling my fingers (which is why the blog is so up-to-date) and it's driving me crazy. Here's to a hectic year ahead...
